tips to get beyond where I am now

[RockyRacc00n]

I've been a beginner guitar player for a long time and I want to get to the next level. I am wondering if many of you advanced players were in my stage at some point in your guitar experience and might offer some advice.

Let me first give you an idea of me as a guitar player:
1) Been playing the guitar on and off for nearly 2 decades, with long stretches of hiatus during that time. I recently rededicated myself to the instrument and I really want to get to the next level.
2) I like to sing, so I've been content with being able to strum chords in rhythm to basically accompany myself.
3) I think 2) has been a hindrance because whenever I try to learn scales or music theory, I fall back into the comfort zone that is just singing songs while strumming chords. Can anyone relate to this?

What I want to do:
1) Learn scales and how you use that in doing fills and riffs. My knowledge of guitar playing so far is all based off just memorizing chords. So it amazes me when I see someone doing fills and riffs and I wonder, are they doing that from memory or are they figuring it out on the fly?
2) I know how to play the major scales and the minor pentatonic, but I have no idea how you use that in a song. The few riff and fills I know how to do is all from someone telling, put this finger here and then here and then there, and just memorizing all of it. That can't be the way those things are done, is it?
3) I tried to get into learning this stuff from various YouTube videos, but it's just so much info and I can't seem to get any traction to stick with some learning path. And then I fall into number (3) from above.

Do any of you have any tips? I hope I didn't ramble too much and gave you a good idea of where I am and where I want to go. Perhaps this is a somewhat typical progression for many players?

[stanron]

My main tip would be concentrate on sounds rather than rules and theory. Theory does not tell you how to make music. It enables you to talk about it afterwards.

If you want to play fills, and that's a good next step, find some music that has fills that you like and copy that, by ear.

I don't know what music you like but the Carter family style of song accompaniment could be a good place to start.

If you learn that style you will be learning scales, but from a practical basis rather than theoretical and you will be developing your musical, aural memory.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by stanron

My main tip would be concentrate on sounds rather than rules and theory. Theory does not tell you how to make music. It enables you to talk about it afterwards.

If you want to play fills, and that's a good next step, find some music that has fills that you like and copy that, by ear.

I don't know what music you like but the Carter family style of song accompaniment could be a good place to start.

If you learn that style you will be learning scales, but from a practical basis rather than theoretical and you will be developing your musical, aural memory.

Listen, copy, assimilate.

[RockyRacc00n]

Originally Posted by stanron

My main tip would be concentrate on sounds rather than rules and theory. Theory does not tell you how to make music. It enables you to talk about it afterwards.

If you want to play fills, and that's a good next step, find some music that has fills that you like and copy that, by ear.

Not sure how I would even begin to do that. Sometimes I try to figure stuff out by ear, but it's like complete guess work. I can tell if a note I am hearing is higher or lower than the previous (for the most part), but other than that, I can't tell how many semi tones they are separate. So I am basically fretting a bunch of notes until I happen to guess at the right one. And then if I happen to get a whole measure right, then I memorize that and play it. But then if memorizing it is what I am going to end up doing anyway, what's the point in trying to figure it out on my own when there is probably someone on YouTube that figured it out already?

Putting in in terms of singing with my voice, if I hear a melody, I instinctively know how to make that sound. Is that how it is with advanced guitar players? They hear a melody, and they instinctively know where to fret their finger?... Or is it a bit more involved and would that be something that comes with theory, which you seem to suggest isn't critical? If I can do that, yeah, then I can see how someone can play on the fly without having it memorized. Not sure if any of this will make sense to the reader.

Originally Posted by stanron

I don't know what music you like but the Carter family style of song accompaniment could be a good place to start.

If you learn that style you will be learning scales, but from a practical basis rather than theoretical and you will be developing your musical, aural memory.

I like rock, country, pop, anything that is singable and accompany-able on a guitar with simple strumming or finger picking. I will check out Carter family stuff you mentioned.

[amyFB]

I have to thoroughly absorb all the guitar parts (picking and strumming) before I can confidently add my vocals to the mix.

[TBman]

I don't know how to improvise outside of the usual I IV V progression, but I can do bluesy stuff using the E pentatonic blues scale over E7, A7 and B7.

Basically what I do is do some lead work in place of a chord in the progression or prior to, just keeping in time. i.e. play E7, then 2nd string - 3, 5 frets, then 1st string 3, 5 frets then slide to 7, then 5, then 2nd string 8 fret, 5th fret, then 3rd, then the A7 chord, but all with a bluesy slow drag kinda of tempo.

Here's what I mean:



Not that great, but its a start.

Maybe check out some of Toby Walker's "Blues Fingerpicking Freedom" dvds. I'm not sure how to relate this to non blues music though.

[1neeto]

I think knowing the key of the chord progression will help a lot. There's a lot you can do melody wise with major and minor scales, or even pentatonic scales.

[j3ffr0]

I suggest learning some songs with some of the fills you like, learn enough theory to be able to see how those fills relate to the song and chords they occur over, and some technique work to enable playing of the fills.

A some lessons or books on improvisation in whatever style you like could be a big help as far as guidance.

[RockyRacc00n]

TBman, Thanks for that clip. Probably basic stuff to many of you, but this is the kind of stuff that mystifies me. How one figures out how to do that. That sounded good and I am going to decipher what you wrote and see if I can play it. But again, why hitting those sequence of frets/strings make it sounds good... a lot of it is a mystery to me.

And to the other respondents. Thanks for your tidbits on theory. I hit on this video which explains what people mean by I IV V. Would you say this is the beginning of some of the basic theory I need to understand?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt6z...=RDrt6zDOFNAdY

[TBman]

Originally Posted by RockyRacc00n

TBman, Thanks for that clip. Probably basic stuff to many of you, but this is the kind of stuff that mystifies me. How one figures out how to do that. That sounded good and I am going to decipher what you wrote and see if I can play it. But again, why hitting those sequence of frets/strings make it sounds good... a lot of it is a mystery to me.

And to the other respondents. Thanks for your tidbits on theory. I hit on this video which explains what people mean by I IV V. Would you say this is the beginning of some of the basic theory I need to understand?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt6z...=RDrt6zDOFNAdY

I'll look at the video later, but the I IV V refers to the scale position.

E major scale

E..F#..G#..A..B..C#..D#..E
1..2.....3....4...5..6.....7....8

1 4 5 = E A B. To get the bluesy sound you use E7 A7 B7 in this key.

My knowledge of music theory ends right about here, lol, but it's enough that I can figure some things out.

[RockyRacc00n]

Originally Posted by TBman

E major scale

E..F#..G#..A..B..C#..D#..E
1..2.....3....4...5..6.....7....8

1 4 5 = E A B. To get the bluesy sound you use E7 A7 B7 in this key.

My knowledge of music theory ends right about here, lol, but it's enough that I can figure some things out.

Yes, write out the major scale in a particular key. And take the 1st, 4th, and 5th and those are the major chords that "work" in that key. And this fits many (if not all) of the easy 3 chord songs I've played in the past. But then there are also songs that have these 3 chords and few other chords.

For example, a song I recently learned to play, "Hey Jude", which you can check out on my video (shameless plug =))...

It's in the key of F. I'm going to assume that F major scale is what was used for this song. So, the notes in that scale are F G A Bb C D E F. And I IV V are F Bb C. There is also F7 and C7 in the song, but those are probably a flavor of F and C, so I get those.

But besides F Bb and C, there is also Gm. G is the 2nd note in the F major scale. And I understand that II III and VI are supposed to be minors? So I guess that's why the Gm, if you were going to use the G.

So, using some basic theory, I now understand the chords used in the song, but how does this help me when I am playing the song? When people play songs, are they playing purely from memory or are they applying this kind of scale/chord theory to not have to completely rely on memory?

I can see the value in knowing this if I am writing a song, but not sure how this helps me when I am playing a song that's already been transcribed.

[TBman]

I think if you are playing someone else's song and are playing guitar to accompany a singer, you might have to play the song in a different key, so I suppose you would have to figure out whether to transpose the song to a different key or short cut it if you can and use a capo. Also, maybe in finger style arrangements knowing how to transpose to a different key to suit your own style of playing (like different finger positions to reduce stretches) might come in handy.

I just play guitar to entertain myself so I don't generally worry too much about theory. I dabble with it when I get in the mood to.

[RockyRacc00n]

Originally Posted by TBman

I think if you are playing someone else's song and are playing guitar to accompany a singer, you might have to play the song in a different key, so I suppose you would have to figure out whether to transpose the song to a different key or short cut it if you can and use a capo. Also, maybe in finger style arrangements knowing how to transpose to a different key to suit your own style of playing (like different finger positions to reduce stretches) might come in handy.

Ok, I get that. One more question. In the song Hey Jude, there is also an Eb used at the end when they are doing the "na na na... " sing along part. How does Eb work? Is that a substitute for VII dim (E dim)?

[TBman]

Originally Posted by RockyRacc00n

Ok, I get that. One more question. In the song Hey Jude, there is also an Eb used at the end when they are doing the "na na na... " sing along part. How does Eb work? Is that a substitute for VII dim (E dim)?

I think the answer to your questions can be found if you research "harmonizing scales." Certain chords represent certain notes in the scale, they aren't always a C chord for a c note for example. To get the "color" of the melody/scale certain chords are used and they may vary for different keys. In other words a diminished chord might represent an E note in the key of C, but in the key of A maybe a E minor chord would fit. These aren't actual examples, but do you get my meaning? Google "harmonizing scales."

This is all beyond my skill set, I'm just "brainstorming" the problem.

[RockyRacc00n]

Originally Posted by TBman

I think the answer to your questions can be found if you research "harmonizing scales." Certain chords represent certain notes in the scale, they aren't always a C chord for a c note for example. To get the "color" of the melody/scale certain chords are used and they may vary for different keys. In other words a diminished chord might represent an E note in the key of C, but in the key of A maybe a E minor chord would fit. These aren't actual examples, but do you get my meaning? Google "harmonizing scales."

This is all beyond my skill set, I'm just "brainstorming" the problem.

The lady teacher I posted above has a whole series which I think will get into that. Right now, I don't get what you are saying but something I should study.

I guess one thing at a time, but does studying this stuff later lead to being able to play riffs and fills? Or, as I think some one mentioned earlier, do I simply look at how others play a riff I like and I imitate? (and theory just explains why certain notes worked, just like how theory explained why certain chords worked.)